


Modern Divinity

by Eilwen



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A bit of humour, Biblical References, Boredom, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Modern Art, Slice of Life, a bit of nothing happening, both TV/book Omens, established relationship chapters, friends - Freeform, slow burn chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-06-30 02:22:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19843576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eilwen/pseuds/Eilwen
Summary: There that there are still things Aziraphale and Crowley have yet to learn about each other from their vices to their preferences in 1970s western art. These are small short stories exploring Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship via (mostly) modern objects, inventions, events and concepts. Each story can be read separately and in any order.For now:Aziraphale had been to the Moon before, on the 4th day of Creation. The divine beings opened the Moon with a ribbon ceremony and drank some of the moonbeams in celebration. Crowley was working elsewhere amongst the stars.





	1. Cigarettes

**Author's Note:**

> I am distracting myself. This work will always be listed as complete but I will add chapters as more ideas come.

He learnt that Aziraphale smoked. He was not a chain smoker and not even a frequent smoker but a still a smoker who knew how to work a cigarette.

It was raining that day again - a downpour unpredicted by BBC’s weathermen. Aziraphale had wondered if it was caused by something supernatural, but nothing unusual fell from the sky, no fish or blood. They had situated themselves by a windowsill to observe.

Crowley boldly opened the window and the sheers fluttered inward. If they were in either of their London residences, they would hide from the rain. Aziraphale would protect his books and Crowley would protect his expensive sound system. But here, in this cottage with nothing of true monetary value, they were both unusually flippant about so many things. The stove nearly exploded only a week before.

“Careful, Crowley.”

“The wind won’t come in.” It didn’t.

Crowley tilted his chair back, extended himself and dug into the drawer of the nearby writing table and procured a small box of cigarettes. He had quit some time ago but damn wasn’t this a week for vices and minor chaos and there was something oddly pleasurable being here wasting time with Aziraphale, watching the rain for hours. Lightning brightened the room for just a moment and thunder rolled heavily after.

“Left behind from the previous tenant,” Crowley explained. He flicked a lighter, took a deep drag and exhaled easily, watched the little grey cloud billow out the window. His body had not forgotten, after all.

He basked in Aziraphale’s stare, thinking, _‘Yes, watch me and be surprised by me.’_

Crowley nearly spat out the cigarette when he saw Aziraphale reach out and pluck a white virgin stick from the box and light it expertly with a matchstick miracled from his own pocket.

“Did you know Heaven is a non-smoking area?” Aziraphale said, casually. The smoke flowed out of his lips as he said this. The soft light from the window caressed his face, not bright enough to make his hair glow as it would on a sunny day but not dark enough to misread any facial expressions. The cigarette hung loosely from his fingers as if it belonged there with a small sacrilegious orange halo at one end. 

“No,” Crowley mumbled, still trying to keep his cool. He felt vulnerable without his sunglasses. Cigarettes were not yet a concept during his stint in Heaven. "I could see it. Don't want to stain the ceiling high windows. But you also need to smoke outside the gates in Hell. Flies and feces, OK. Cigarette smoke? Health hazard.”

“Is that so?” Said almost idly.

Only three words but they were liquid. Crowley slotted them into his memory.

He would learn eventually that Aziraphale also knew how to roll a cigarette and he would watch Aziraphale pack tobacco into paper, lick the edges and twist between delicate fingers. For now, he observed the end of Aziraphale’s cigarette glowing, sucking deeper into the tobacco, leaving ash drooping and clinging before falling onto the window sill. When his attention returned to the Aziraphale, the angel was smiling slyly back at him. Oh.

Crowley smirked. “You bastard.”

He gave one last desperate drag before crushing the stub into the plastered wall. If he had working human lungs he would have coughed and choked and Aziraphale would need to send him to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by Crowley and Aziraphale’s New Year’s Wishes


	2. Modern Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley consider the art world in the 1970s.

It is generally assumed that Hell is to take credit for the majority of western modern and contemporary art. Crowley, in particular, got a special commendation for Duchamp. A urinal in a museum? A stroke of genius and a spit in the eye to any classical paintings of putti playing harp in the clouds. If Heaven got architecture, why couldn’t Hell have art?

It was the seventies and Aziraphale was given the assignment to reclaim the art world but with an attached warning that ‘times are changing’. No more could he look for sculptors and figurative painters. He had to think outside the traditional box. Aziraphale was not sure he was the right angel for the job. Sure, he appreciated beauty as any human does, but art in the 1970s? He couldn’t even understand Warhol from the 60s and whatever Pollock did with paint in the 50s. This was a bit out of his range. He turned to Crowley for advice.

“I’m not an art teacher.” Crowley said over the phone.

“Yes but at least explain to me how it could be done.”

The truth was that Crowley and other demons simply had no actual influence on modern art after the 1900s and the Duchamp report was a blatant lie. There were some sincere attempts from either side in the early days of modern art. Crowley had met Monet and had suggested to _“Peins ce que tu vois”/“Paint what you see”_ , without knowing that Monet would take his suggestion literally with growing cataracts. Aziraphale had conversed with Van Gogh about ineffability, thinking he might influence him to find God in nature when he was confusing himself with the more literal God. Eventually art spiraled out of divine control and neither Heaven nor Hell actually did much to push it in any direction, though Hell did put it in their record books as a winning streak every year since 1890.

“Angel, this isn’t anything you can do. Just sit back, enjoy the show, reinterpret something as holy and let Heaven know. Isn’t that what art is? Whatever you interpret?”

“You don’t actually know do you?”

In the conversation there was a whim - a fleeting joke, which became a serious idea and by the end of their phone call, they agreed to at least _try_ to understand it. So, Crowley suggested New York City since that was where the good stuff was brewing and they met in the airport the following week. It was a cold January morning and it was the first time Aziraphale had seen Crowley’s moustache despite Crowley sporting it for a full year. You can imagine how that went.

They flashed their spontaneously miracled passports, compared the ages they gave themselves ( _“Thirty five? Who are you trying to fool?”_ ) and their passport photographs as they waited and boarded the Pan Am airplane to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The most talked about artist in New York City at the time was Vito Acconci. Aziraphale heard Acconci was a performance artist and voiced his excitement. He thought of Shakespeare with maybe some paint or poetry readings and felt that perhaps he had a head start without realising it.

And so they made Sonnabend Gallery in SoHo as their first stop. From the outside, the gallery was unassuming, blending in with the other cast iron buildings of the district and while a few visitors wandered around atop a wooden slanted ramp, there was no visible art on the white walls, just loudspeakers resting in the corners.

As they neared, Aziraphale asked, “Do you think he might be late? Or does he bring performers?”

Crowley shrugged, but slowly a devilish smile formed once they crossed the threshold and entered the gallery. “Aziraphale, listen.”

The loudspeaker fizzled and an intimate male voice crackled out: _“Fuck me deeply.”_

Aziraphale froze at the entrance and Crowley halfway up the ramp looked back at him.

 _“You are licking my asshole.”_ The loudspeaker trembled with each word.

The ramp was hollow and as Crowley walked, his footsteps reverberated against the thin wood.

The wood responded. There was something below. Crowley jumped up as if allowing the creature below to swim or shift about, but the wooden kraken followed, searching for Crowley above. Aziraphale carefully stepped up onto the ramp.

The loudspeaker continued: _“You are ramming your huge cock into my ass.”_ and the sound of movement. Aziraphale crouched and stared at the floor as if he could see through the wooden planks.

“He’s below us,” said Aziraphale.

A strange slapping sound poured out of the loudspeaker. _“You are tearing my asshole apart.”_

“And he’s,” Aziraphale listened again, “self-pleasuring. I think he’s been doing this for hours.”

Crowley lifted an eyebrow and nodded with unspoken appreciation and admiration.

There was an air of almost disappointing calmness between the two. It was the foreignness - a reserved ‘Maybe this is an American thing? Have we been in England too long?’ or perhaps maybe neither of them wanted to look like two fools in a gallery when everyone else had an academic expression of ‘Hmm I see’ as they stroked their chins.

“I don’t understand this,” Aziraphale confessed as he turned to Crowley and dusted his knees. He was wearing his nice travelling trousers that day.

_“I’m taking your angelic cock into my mouth.”_

Aziraphale’s face flushed deeply. _There we go._

Crowley knelt and whispered into the floor. “Don’t leave me out of this. What about my demonic arsehole?”

As they left, they agreed that Hell probably had scored a point with the Acconci.

 _Seedbed_ , as the piece was called, ran for two weeks in the SoHo gallery. The show had been an immense success both in the art world and in Hell where in Crowley’s report he wrote with a flourish: _‘The grandest accomplishment was the suggestion of fornication, which we know to be more tempting and arousing than straight visual pornography.’_

Aziraphale on the other hand, chose not to mention Acconci to Heaven. He struggled for hours trying to see if he could find some angelic grace but it was clear that one could only bullshit so much before it becomes obvious.

The next outing, Colorado, was Aziraphale’s idea. He read about Earth Art and Environmental Art and thought he could make connections to Romanticism (Heaven’s last true big success in the Art World) and while it was too late to write a report on Smithson’s _Spiral Jetty_ , he thought to try something slightly more modest. The concept, according to the artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, was simple: hang a massive orange curtain across Rifle Gap, a valley close to Rifle, Colorado.

“And how, angel, could that be possibly related to the divine?”

“I could write something about the sublime. If you write sublime into any report, Heaven just assumes it’s a good thing.”

“So if you were to write, ‘his arse is sublime’ then - ”

“Don’t be silly, Crowley.”

The one previous attempt at _Valley Curtain_ had been a disaster. This time, Aziraphale promised, it would be a success so he visited the artist couple in August and witnessed the cloth pulled across the valley and swell with the wind.

Crowley chose to stay in England, complaining that ‘rocky mountains weren’t his thing,’ but for the first time in six thousand years, they spoke to each other on the phone nearly every day that Aziraphale was there in Colorado - sometimes to talk about the art, sometimes to talk about the artist couple, sometimes to talk about what the food was like.

Aziraphale smiled at the success he was entirely unrelated to, but he gave a small blessing anyway and despite the winds, the curtain seemed to manage just fine. The workers high five'd each other and drove home in their trucks and Aziraphale stayed to watch.

Twenty eight hours later, the curtain shredded due to a storm gale, but Aziraphale wrote to Heaven: _‘Artists are still concerned with sublimity and awareness of what God has given to them (the Earth). It was a sight to behold - all humans in their hard hats, looking up to the skies, as if in prayer.’_

That wasn’t so bad. Heaven gave the OK, and Aziraphale decided that was enough to leave the art world.

There had been a handsome photographer at the location, who had provided Aziraphale with a developed photograph of the event. Aziraphale had paid the photographer a few American dollars and when he and Crowley next met at St James's Park, he pulled it, free of creases, from his pocket and gave it to the surprised demon.

The photograph was rather nice; the orange curtain looked like a giant caterpillar stretching across the valley and he could see a very small Aziraphale, dressed ridiculously, among the workers.

"You know from afar," Aziraphale said, "the curtain looked like it was setting the sky on fire. I didn't mention that to Heaven of course in case they got the wrong idea, but imagine the Americans driving, going about their day and something red comes to the corner of their eye and surprises them. Even if they need focus on their driving, look at the road ahead, they can't help but look at the art. As if the art tempts them to look at it. And when they approach it, they realise how beautiful it really is."

Crowley did not respond - keeping his eyes fixed on the photograph.

"It was good. To share this journey with you," Aziraphale concluded.

They had nothing else of importance to talk about that day at St James's Park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest in peace Acconci and Jeanne-Claude.
> 
> With some liberties on actual art:  
> https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/266876  
> https://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/valley-curtain


	3. Medicine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do angels and demons have hearts? Crowley questions the chronic ache in his chest.

Do angels have hearts? There have been no records of an angel’s corporeal body dissections or of angelic X-rays. Some angels with bodies have discussed hearing a thumping in their chest, but this is some and there had been reports of exaggeration.

Regardless, hearts have been woven into the angelic language:

_“I feel it in my heart.”_

_“A demon with a black heart.”_

_“... If you weren’t, at heart, a good person.”_

But these are figures of speech - like lead balloons.

Their hands will instinctively rise to their chest when they experience something remotely related to love and like all humans, a shot to the chest will lead to death, or for a divine being, discorporation. Angels do not breathe, so do they have lungs? They still gasp, choke and sigh.

On the other hand, demons throughout the six thousand or so years have never thought to question what might be in their chest. They can be cruel and sacrifice a fellow demon for whatever purpose but no demon ever considered to scientifically examine the interior of another. If they have flesh, then of course they would have a heart, functioning or non-functioning, right? Still, this is all speculation and unfortunately curiosity and imagination are missing from demons.

All demons except one.

* * *

Is there no medicine to cure an aching heart?

Crowley was not sure when was the first time his demonic heart began to hurt. He knew it skipped just once on Eden’s wall after Aziraphale’s ridiculous confession. Back then he was _Crawley_ , who realised that Aziraphale could not confess giving away his flaming sword to anyone else of _their_ kind and it made Crawley feel a little special, in a selfish way. So his heart skipped.

He had assumed it to be a fault of his corporeal body and he thought about returning to Hell for a refund.

The odd sensations in his heart were interpreted to be just excitement - sort of an _oh! A familiar face!_ whenever he and Aziraphale bumped into each other in their first four millennia on Earth. He enjoyed Aziraphale’s presence because Aziraphale was a blast of fresh air from the muddy, smelly, depressing hellions down below and frankly a good conversationalist. Aziraphale actually made him laugh - not because Aziraphale had a tremendous sense of humour as Aziraphale tended to overuse simplified knock-knock jokes, but because he was simply Aziraphale.

In the early years of their acquaintance-ship, Aziraphale had not wanted to talk to him whenever Crawley had approached but each time there was always a slip up. Aziraphale would soften and share a bit of gossip or Crawley would continue their conversations for just a little longer than necessary. That was how the game was played at first and the skipping sensation in the chest was just because he was colliding with someone he could have a real conversation with.

But then the _ache_. The ache was something different. It crept up to him slowly and when he realised its presence, he questioned how long it had been there and how related it was to the skipping feeling. He had thought briefly of his refund joke again and equated his body to a metaphorical vacuum cleaner that slowly loses suction and you wouldn’t have known until it was too late.

“Have you heard about Dinah?” Aziraphale had said. “Oh, my dear.”

This was still early in Crawley’s time on Earth and he was she. Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, had come into a tragic encounter with a prince of the land upon which her family had set up camp. What followed was also terrible: Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, after they had deceived all the men of Shechem to be circumcised, they took advantage of their weak states and exterminated the city as revenge for their sister. The whole situation was one of the first instances where Crawley had seen the deep imperfections of humanity. Neither Aziraphale nor Crawley were involved, but their proximity was enough to alert both of their superiors. Crawley was not happy with the commendation.

Aziraphale and Crawley debated the events tremendously when they ran into each other after the news had spread throughout the region. Crawley remembered Aziraphale’s hands waving during their passionate argument rather than reserved and held against his stomach as normal and she remembered that when they finally parted, she had the true first massive ache in her chest and she fell onto her knees in a cave to sleep off her confusion. The discussion invigorated something deep inside her, and she felt like she witnessed two bulls running head first into each other, except that she was one of the bulls.

She avoided Aziraphale for many years after that and they both moved on to other things.

Separately Aziraphale and Crawley’s earthly identities began to truly form as they developed likes and dislikes about Earth and its people. Crawley became Crowley, then she became a he again and his temptations dulled to simply inconveniencing people because he realized he did not really need to do much to cause mischief and many humans were more than willing to jump into heinous crimes.

Then the Arrangement began. Their meetings became purposeful and with more substance. No longer were they just colliding into each other in some street. They were organising specific places to meet to exchange thoughts or ideas and trade miracles or sins. The ache gradually reappeared and grew and Crowley did not realise until it was too late. His metaphorical vacuum cleaner was entirely suction-less.

It was torturous for him, especially in those early days.

* * *

It was approximately six months after what should have been the end of the world.

Crowley and Aziraphale saw each other much more frequently than usual. Before the Anti-Christ was born, their meetings had been maybe once a century, a few days within a month if absolutely necessary, once every four years, etcetera. The irregularity was unpredictable. Now that the end of the world did not happen and there were no real expectations from either Heaven or Hell, it was every day. Every day his heart would ache and what made it worse was that he continuously tempted himself to spend longer periods of time with Aziraphale. More often he would extend his visit to the bookshop, and he would drape himself on the sofa, celebrating their newfound ‘work vacation’ and sleep and sleep until he realised _‘Oh, right the plants.’_

At the same time, these were some of his most joyous days. He had never seen Aziraphale eat curry until recently. He didn’t even know Aziraphale liked curry, but now that they ate together every day, he witnessed Aziraphale sample new restaurants, scoff at Asian Fusion food (but still try it out anyway), go into poetic descriptions about the beauty of hole-in-the-wall food places and talk for hours about the pros and cons of Michelin stars.

Side note: Crowley aggravated him once with a teasing _‘Have you heard of Yelp?’_

Then, for the first time somewhere in the past six months, Crowley watched Aziraphale eat curry. It was not that Aziraphale was known to be against any type of food, it was just something that never crossed Crowley’s mind. What a fool Crowley was. He had seen Aziraphale eat terrible cafeteria food in the British Museum many times so why would Aziraphale _not_ eat curry?

He mentally raised a glass for new knowledge as he remembered this discovery and for the first time in thousands of years, the aching heart actually skipped like a newborn.

Except newborns don’t skip. He will think of a better analogy later.

This train of thought was interrupted when Aziraphale asked very suddenly, “Have your people contacted you as yet?”

They were in the back of Aziraphale’s bookshop, chasing away their boredom once again, Aziraphale in a comfortable armchair and Crowley sitting opposite him, only a foot away, leaning against a small table. They were barely through their third drink.

“Have yours?”

Aziraphale’s throat bobbed. “I saw them. Well, Michael. I saw Michael. I thought by mistake at first, but I was frequenting a shop nearby and it was so sudden. The more I think about it, the more I am sure.”

Crowley was definitely not drunk enough for this conversation. He believed Aziraphale because he felt it too. He was not spotting Hastur or other demons anywhere but there was a restless feeling - like Heaven and Hell had not forgotten their two ronin.

“They can’t do anything to you,” Crowley responded though he wasn’t entirely sure if he was telling the truth. They had escaped execution before entirely on a prediction but Agnes Nutter left nothing else for them to rely on. “It’s no use worrying. We’ll deal with it when the time comes.”

Aziraphale relaxed but said nothing.

Crowley continued, “We can always leave London if we have to.”

“You know Heaven’s eyes aren’t only on London.”

“No, but it’ll keep them on their toes a little. It’s only a thought.”

Aziraphale smiled. “It is a thought but I’ve grown so accustomed to this place and I wouldn’t want to leave out of fear.”

Fair enough. Crowley shrugged cooly. “If anything happens, I am on our side.”

Aziraphale’s hands were resting on his lap. Crowley had intended to just give a friendly pat on the shoulder but his swing was weak. He missed and his right hand fell onto Aziraphale’s left. Maybe he _was_ a little tipsy. Seeing his mistake, he thought to pull away but instead his fingers boldly curled around Aziraphale's index and middle finger and he waited for a response.

At first there was none and when Crowley thought to pull back, Aziraphale twisted his wrist and grasped Crowley’s hand in return. Not a firm clasp but a caress. Crowley was not sure if he was even holding Aziraphale’s hand as much as they were resting palms against each other. He learnt another new thing about the angel: the details in his hand now that he had the time to truly observe. Aziraphale’s hand was soft, which he had always known, but now Crowley felt the folds, the electric fingertips and the gentle scratch from manicured nails. Crowley was true fool indeed.

“And I am on ours.”

And then Crowley felt it: Aziraphale’s pulse in the wrist.

So he looked up and saw that Aziraphale was already staring back at him intensely. Crowley memorised Aziraphale’s eyelashes, the hairs in his eyebrows, the confusing colours of his irises surrounding his dilated pupils. Crowley’s ache was now in his throat. Someone’s hand was sweaty. Was it his? Aziraphale’s? He wanted to lick it away. Lick every inch of skin. Dip his head to their hands and dissolve himself in the sweat.

For a second, Crowley reasoned with himself that _this is good for now. We’ll ignore this and I’ll go to my flat after this and I’ll wallow in my self-pity and wait for the soreness to go away._

Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s palm with his thumb. It was the most intimate gesture and it tickled a little.

Thank God, Satan or Someone, Aziraphale made the next move and the pain in Crowley’s heart finally alleviated.

There is medicine to cure an aching heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was younger, I always thought Dinah’s story was so sad so I didn’t want to touch on it too much in detail here.


	4. Cassette Tapes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wednesday in November, 1983: Crowley purchases a cassette with only The Smith’s This Charming Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: I wrote this _literally_ before finding about what's been up with Morrissey. Upsetting.

The music record store close to A.Z. Fell And Co. was thriving in the early 1980s. Its walls were covered with shelves and shelves of vinyl records, cassettes and a small section dedicated to soft-core pornography on video. Once the owner legitimised the place with posted ads in underground clubs, the store was nearly always crowded every day it was open.

Its third anniversary was coming up and the owner, looking to expand and keep up, hired a young man to assist. This young man was large and had graceful movements and a shy speaking voice. Only two months prior, he had saved his money, had dropped out of university and had taken the train to London to find something new. London was alive and this young man was inspired.

He took his job seriously, and in the night, he ripped popular songs and made copies of cassette tapes, then stocked the shelves and cardboard boxes with his own personal compilations and mixtapes to sell for cheap. He stuck ‘Hi My Name Is’ tags onto the cases, scratched out the ‘Hi My Name Is’ part with a thick black marker and wrote the full list of songs with a biro since for some reason, the cases were always missing the sleeves. He was particularly proud of some of his curated playlists on disco.

One of the record store’s usual browsers/shoppers was Anthony, a thin, tall man who always wore sunglasses even when inside. Spotting him was easy. His Bentley would skid by with Queen vibrating from within the car and he would park in front of Fell’s bookshop. He was clearly an avid reader, because he would disappear into the bookshop for hours but occasionally he might swagger into the record store beforehand to do a quick scan of the space.

The young man once flirted and said that he never knew what Anthony's true eye colour was but Anthony, mysterious as ever, joked that he had the eyes of a snake. The young man always thought Anthony was stylish though potentially too old for him, but what’s age in London anyway? London was the city of possibilities. Anthony was more browser than purchaser, but when he did, he purchased many at once and always overpaid a little. Whenever the young man would hold the change out for his customer to take it, Anthony would be out the door with a wave and the new cassettes swinging in a plastic bag.

It was 1983 and it was a Wednesday in November and Anthony was here.

“Anything in particular?” the young man asked though he knew the response would always be -

“Just buying time.”

“Maybe I can suggest something.” The young pushed a cassette tape he personally made across the counter. “It’s only one song, but they were playing it so much on the radio these days and I had to grab it.”

He did not mention that he thought of Anthony when he heard the song. Anthony picked up the cassette and read the bold scribbled title, written in red, “This Charming Man - the Smiths”. The young man smiled, hoping to hear that maybe Anthony was a fan of the Smiths as much as Queen, but the wrinkled eyebrows suggested that the band was unfamiliar.

Anthony in response, pushed a few coins as a thank you and left. When he next returned, he never mentioned the song. Perhaps it was for the best. The young man was too fresh to take direct rejection.

After only a few months, the store received a streak of bad luck. Broken windows, robberies and finally there was raid and the store closed for its illegal goods. It wasn’t his bootleg cassettes that were the issue. It was unfortunately the pornography. The owner gave up trying to revitalise the place and decided he would go to the countryside for some peace and quiet.

The young man thus was left without a job but he managed fine and found himself working in insurance. He eventually became middle-aged, maybe older, and at some point, he considered maybe moving back to Manchester. He missed his mother.

It was a Friday, thirty years later, and the middle-aged-maybe-older man was near London Euston, counting his coins for the next train back home when Anthony appeared.

Anthony’s body was unmistakable - his walk would always catch your attention as if seeing a snake just slither into a room, but the shock was that Anthony had not aged. At all.

The middle-aged-maybe-older man considered saying hi, how are you and how have you been but he saw that Anthony was deep in some secretive conversation with another fellow. They looked like secret agents sharing conspiracies, or maybe lovers.

This fellow had light blond curly hair, walked with a straight back and he smiled a lot. The middle-aged-maybe-older man recognised him as A.Z. Fell, the bookshop owner - who also looked just as ageless as Anthony. Fell always had looked sour whenever the middle-aged-maybe-older man had ventured into his store in the 80s but here he was radiant and glowing.

The middle-aged-maybe-older man, careful not to interrupt their private moment, only passed by but he did overhear bits of their conversation - something about a wedding in Tadfield and Mr. Fell grieving over having to find something to wear.

Anthony, this charming man, only responded as if quoting some song lyric, “It’s gruesome that someone so handsome should care.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite cover of This Charming Man is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9WEeKYID4I


	5. Astronauts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale had been to the Moon before, on the 4th day of Creation. The divine beings opened the Moon with a ribbon ceremony and drank some of the moonbeams in celebration. Crowley was working elsewhere amongst the stars.

Aziraphale had been to the Moon before, on the 4th day of Creation. The divine beings opened the Moon with a ribbon ceremony and drank some of the moonbeams in celebration while God watched pleased from a distance.

Aziraphale only remembered the unnecessary craters and the smell of gunpowder. He looked up and wondered if those on the stars fared any better. Other angels, impressed with the quiet atmosphere, discussed opening a nightclub in the Sea of Tranquility. He, however, found the low gravity uncomfortable and his wings struggled with the lack of atmosphere. The night ended early for him and he decided to return to the more interestingly designed Earth.

The role of Principality ensured that he remained on Earth anyway, and he was grateful for it. The Moon was and is still prettier from afar.

\--

1969 was an odd year, speckled with odd events: a mass murder in Los Angeles, Woodstock, Stonewall. They said that the internet was born this year though Aziraphale’s knowledge of the internet is still lacking to this day.

And the Moon Landing. 

Crowley and Aziraphale had not seen each other since their meeting in the Bentley regarding holy water and Aziraphale was completely fine with this. Completely. Really.

Two years was a speck compared to the decades between 1862 and 1941 when they were on much clearer non-speaking terms and there were larger gaps before then, but Aziraphale at those times, was not pining. He assumed their relationship to be friendly business and he had wanted it to be friendly business. Now he wasn’t entirely sure and he wished he could find Crowley, grab him and scream ‘I gave you what you want, now don’t ever leave me, please.’ Maybe Crowley had run away with the Thermos, ending their millennia-long dance. Maybe once he gained what he needed, he didn’t need to know an angel anymore. The worry was driving him a little insane.

So, he was surprised when suddenly, Crowley barged into his bookshop with a large box-like electronic with a wooden frame and placed it on one of the few cleared tables. Aziraphale, who was lounging comfortably in a chair with a book and cocoa, nearly dropped the drink onto paper. The box banged onto the table ungracefully.

“Evening, angel. Want to watch some television?” He looked at the plug and saw that there were no outlets along the walls.

“C-Crowley! It’s been -”

“Yeah. No outlets?” Two years. Neither of them said it. Aziraphale closed his book and placed his cocoa aside as Crowley studied the television. Unsure of what to do, the demon slapped the wooden side, and the screen fizzled on in black and white.

“I thought I picked up a colour television,” Crowley slapped it again. The TV bloomed into basic colours.

“What is going on?”

“Haven’t you heard? The humans are up in space looking to land on the moon. Apparently, everyone is now glued to a TV so I thought I’d see what the fuss was about.” Crowley dropped himself onto the divan and stretched out his legs. It was like he was here yesterday and the holy water conversation never happened. The casualness of his visit spoke more about what his intentions were than not. Crowley wanted to bury the previous events and he was overcompensating.

“And why in my bookshop?”

“Would you have come if I asked you to come to my flat?” Crowley said simply. He knew Crowley would have expected the answer to be ‘no’ but maybe Aziraphale would have given in. Maybe he would have said yes and he’d see where Crowley lived (pre-modern furniture, pre-plant hobby).

“Fair point.” He moved from his chair to sit on the divan beside Crowley and they both turned to stare at the screen. Aziraphale never sat to watch TV before and he felt silly, but sitting with Crowley was nice.

On the television, two presenters sat at a long desk and discussed the intricate details of the moon landing with a model of a rocket and a giant diorama with the moon. How could this be entertainment? Crowley was enraptured. Aziraphale knew Crowley played some role in most of television - news excluded, but there was an itchy feeling in Aziraphale's thighs that he couldn't explain. He nervously tapped his fingers on his lap and saw the accidentally close proximity of their knees.

“Have you been there, Crowley? The moon.”

“No. I never had the chance. I know there was a grand opening party but I was closer to the nebulae at the time,” said Crowley.

“Doing what?”

Crowley waved nonchalantly, “Ecch. You know. Nebula stuff. Watch the TV, Aziraphale. You’re distracting.”

It dawned on Aziraphale that he didn’t know much about Crowley’s life before the fall. If he was working on the stars, it hinted at potentially what type of angel Crowley was. Maybe. Aziraphale was not sure of the hierarchies involved in star construction.

“Which stars?” Aziraphale asked casually, hoping to hide his curiosity.

“I can’t remember,” responded Crowley, very quickly. “Are you one of those types who just ask questions during movies?”

Aziraphale searched for some proper excuse. “We haven’t seen each other in some time. I wanted to catch up.”

Crowley shifted in his seat. Their knees bumped against each other for barely a second. “In the past two years, I have seen the movies 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Odd Couple, Planet of the Apes and Rosemary’s Baby. Not sure, if you’d like any of those. Although they played some classical music in 2001.”

Aziraphale’s agitation was building. “I’m not talking about the films you’ve seen.”

“You said you wanted to catch up. And I know you’d hate Rosemary’s Baby. Some demonic stuff about the Anti-Christ. And Hell wins. Sorry if you intend to see it.”

“Sounds frightful.”

“Definitely, but you won’t have to worry. I doubt that would happen any time -”

“Crowley. I’m asking about what you were like before -” he stopped himself. Before what? Before you fell? Before you became a demon? He pulled back. “I’m being incredibly rude.”

Crowley turned to look back at Aziraphale, his sunglasses masking his eyes and his thoughts. There was an odd silence between the two as the screen updated to show the feed coming from Apollo 11.

“I was the same. My friends were just a little different.” Crowley spread the vagueness thickly. Aziraphale was sure that he was lying. Who knows - maybe Crowley was a seraph, as close to God as Metatron or a simple guardian angel. The answer was so unsatisfactory. A ghostly astronaut appeared on the screen and Crowley changed the topic. “A bit unceremonious when you know how boring the moon actually is.”

“No atmosphere. Powdery dust everywhere. Gets on your clothes,” Aziraphale agreed.

“You can show me there one day.”

“I’d rather go to Alpha Centauri,” Aziraphale said offhandedly, not knowing that the quip would come back to haunt him fifty years later, but he began to daydream of taking Crowley to the moon and pointing out where he walked, how the Earth looked from that position, how the surface felt and they would talk about how bland everything was but made extensively more beautiful now that they were sharing this moment.

“But the humans are interesting - pushing themselves to get a little closer to,” Crowley pointed to the sky, “you know.”

“So a win for Heaven.”

“No, that’s why we have all these languages now. Because your people didn’t want the Tower of Babel built.”

“I can’t see how this is a win for Hell.”

“We can let the humans have this one for themselves.”

Crowley shut off the TV with a snap of his fingers.

Then, while the rest of the world watched their televisions and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Crowley and Aziraphale proceeded to socialise over a bottle of Scotch whisky. Crowley talked about 2001: A Space Odyssey and how the ending was kind of a mind-trip and Aziraphale listened. He had never been to the cinema - so maybe while he would show Crowley the moon, Crowley would show him a movie and their knees would touch. That was genuinely enough for him.

Despite the unsatisfied feeling in his stomach, he was happy with this thought. When Crowley at some point in the drunken night, rested his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder, there was nothing to complain about.

Bottles and tumblers piled atop the TV, creating rings on the wood.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at cheesecakeboredom.tumblr - because eilwen was taken.


End file.
